Messing About On A Mountain

After 2.5 days of ski lessons I’d worked up enough confidence to join the gang today. We headed up the mountain and we did a couple of runs down the green run I learnt on before heading off towards the top of Whistler mountain at which point I promptly managed to lose them all again - doh!

I then spent a really hairy morning mincing my way down the easiest green runs I could find through the clouds which restricted visibility to less than 50 yards. It wasn’t the dream first run I had envisioned but I did it - just - and I’m dead chuffed to be able to say I’ve skied on Whistler mountain which is undoubtedly a magical place.

We met up for lunch and I’d decided to call it quits but after a bite to eat and knowing how much I miss the waves after a surf trip I knew I’d miss the snow and the scenery so I headed back up the mountain, restored my confidence (on my fave green run) and soaked up the atmosphere.

Back in my hotel room something wasn’t quite right. I’d been whinging on about the maid putting all the pillows back on the bed after I clearly didn’t want them there but today the bed was completely covered in pillows! After ruling out a malicious maid I suspected foul play and sure enough it wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door and I was greeted by the IWOOTcam and glee gang - very funny, now watch YOUR backs!

I’d like to be able to claim it was me that set off the fire alarm minutes later, but I didn’t, and we all ended up outside the hotel and waited for the fire service to turn up, reset the alarm, and let us back into our rooms where I’m writing this before heading off out to eat.

Awesome - to the max!

Well, as you’ve heard many times already, we had a bit of an epic journey out here to Whistler. But you know what, I think it actually worked out rather well. It gave us an opportunity to get to know each other a bit more when we stayed in the gorgeous and luxurious Renaissance hotel in Heathrow, and Paul was even kind enough to let us raid the mini bar in his room. It also gave us the opportunity to visit Toronto (after a long hungover plane journey). There we were whisked up the fantastic CN tower just as the sun was setting. Nice. More importantly though, we learnt that you can fit 12 adult hippopotamus (or is that hippopotami?) on their glass viewing platform. And you know what? That’s the sort of information I’m going to keep with me for the rest of my life.

So anyway we’re finally here in Whistler and I’m loving it.. Harvey was absolutely right in saying that no-one has had time to write on this site, so trying to convey all my current experiences now is going to be a bit hard. Today for instance I drove a snowmobile through gorgeous mountain routes, way above whistler village amongst the clouds. There’s no way I can convey this stuff in a few sentences, so I’ll be back to update soon..

For now I must go and meet up with the others before heading out for dinner. We may even hit a club tonight, but I’ll probably need an early night to be honest because I’m meeting the Whistler Mayor in the morning - apparently some of my snowboarding skills were SO fresh that they want to name a road after me - buttery!

Dinner awaits - Until next time guys!

- Jamie

Julie skiing

Julie takes to the slopes and shows us how it’s done, olympic style.

A chance to blog

Finally, a chance to blog has arisen. After leaving on Saturday morning, this is the first time I’ve sat down for more than a few minutes.

Joe’s already mentioned the flights - but basically thanks to a rumoured hungover captain from BA, we ended up taking a major detour via Toronto, giving us the oppurtunity for an inpromtu trip up the world’s tallest tower. And thanks to the confusion of several timezones, Julie had the longest birthday of her life.

At about 10am UK time (having had 4 hours sleep in 48 hours) we arrived in style. The car we arrived in wasn’t a limousine. And it wasn’t a hummer. It was an epically-large-stretch-limo-hummer-monster. Yeah.

2 days of skiing lessons and I’ve lost Julian and Ian halfway down the mountain (ended up taking the wrong trail and going down “blue” trails well out of my league), and I’m back in my room for a jacuzzi before another night out…

Whistler’s an incredible place - the skiing is “awesome“, “mental” and “buttery“(?) as described by our instructor, as are the nights out. An incredible holiday thus far.

Epic Journey

We all arrived at Heathrow on time which was a minor miracle so we proceeded to check-in only to find our flight CANCELLED because the pilot was ill - nice to know BA have no spare pilots!

The best deal we could get was a free night in a local hotel and a next day flight to Toronto then onward Air Canada flight and thankfully they ran to schedule and over 36hours after I left home we arrived at our hotel in Whistler.

We made the most of our 7 hour stopover in Toronto by taking taxis to downtown Toronto where we whooshed up the CN Tower, a most impressive structure - I’m about to head off for breakfast so I’ll let Julian post the pics later.

My first ever ski lesson was amazing - we took a ski lift way up into the mountain then Barnaby from Dorset coached us through the basics and now I can do snow ploughs or “pizzas” awesome - mental even - that’s ski-speak apparently

The hotel is really very comfortable so top marks to Julian for that - although rumour has it there wasn’t much choice for a party of 7 booked at the last minute

More later, gotta go catch some powder, erm…. poser alert!

Meet The Winning Affiliates

Last Friday we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet our affiliates who will be joining us on our snowboarding trip in Canada on the 23rd February and I must say it was an absolute pleasure. From left to right we have: Rich, Julie, Myself, Joe, Harvey & Jamie - Julian was behind the camera all afternoon so managed to escape without being photographed.

Read more

We Have Our Winners

Our blog has been a little quiet over the last two weeks as we’ve all eased our way back into the daily grind of flying remote control helicopters round the office, making bets who would win between Edna and Dorris whilst thinking up new ways to to tease the office dinosaur…. yes its a tough life we live indeed.

Read more

Come Snowboarding With IWOOT

Our Managing Director being the canny guy he is recently noticed a competition within the affiliate industry designed to drive sales for Christmas, the result, he’s demanding we take our affiliates on holiday to incentivise you.

Never one to turn down a free lunch, or holiday for that fact, our online marketing department (that’s myself and Julian for those not in the know) have decided to take 5 of our affiliates with us on a Ski/Snowboarding holiday to Whistler, Canada.

Read more